


Summer Snuggles

by defying3reason



Series: College Boys and High School Girls [10]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: And Combeferre, But at least he has Grantaire, Cats, Cuddling & Snuggling, Enjolras is still terrible at taking care of himself, Fluff, Lots of attention to Grantaire's hair, M/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 12:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1940322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defying3reason/pseuds/defying3reason
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick catch-up on where most of the boys and girls are after graduating college, and then a brief glimpse into Enjolras and Grantaire's domestic life as they struggle with becoming financially independent adults.</p>
<p>A follow-up to my real-time written monster of a fic College Boys & High School Girls. Also written in real time, this is a quick peek at some of the time I skipped over for the sake of the epilogue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Snuggles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JulietBlue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulietBlue/gifts).



> I wrote this fic for the lovely Juliet, who requested some e/R snuggles for her birthday...in May. Better late than never though, right?
> 
>  
> 
> ....sorry. Hope you like it, despite how terribly late it is.

This story last left off in October of 2013, when most of the Amis were still in college and the few that had struck out into the murky realm of adulthood had made some questionable decisions regarding their particular paths. It’s now July of 2014, so a quick description of their present circumstances is in order.

Jehan Prouvaire hasn’t quite fallen out of touch with his old Salem State buddies yet. He’s settled into a lovely little apartment in Montreal with his literary buddies, and he and Hugh are currently in the “on” of their on-again off-again relationship. He really only talks to Combeferre anymore, mostly through Facebook. Combeferre _would_ share updates on how the poet was doing if any of his other friends ever asked.

Of course, they might not be asking out of lack of interest. For the most part, his friends had had a hard time finding any time to chat with him. Combeferre just finished up the final semester of his undergrad. Rather than falling prey to a senior slump, he loaded his schedule up with all the really interesting classes he’d been meaning to take since starting at the school, as this was going to be his last chance to sit in on things like History of Magic and Witchcraft and Natural History of the Vertebrates. He’d started with nine classes, admitted his humanity by dropping one of them, and somehow managed to get A’s and B’s in his remaining eight classes. He’d graduated summa cum laude with three majors and three minors. Joly declared the fact that he hadn’t had a nervous collapse a medical mystery.

We’ll get to the other over-achieving academic of the group shortly.

Courfeyrac also managed to graduate on time, surprising his friends and family with a magna cum laude. Everyone knew the kid was smart, but his dedication had been a bit lacking (or had seemed that way in a clique that contained Combeferre, Enjolras, and Prouvaire). Plus for the brunt of his last semester the time he’d formerly portioned to writing papers and studying for exams had been eaten into by caring for his father. Seemingly recovered from the romantic woes of 2013, Courfeyrac is casually seeing one of Joly and Feuilly’s coworkers.

Marius still has another year at Salem State ahead of him, though he’s trying to speed it along with summer classes and as full a course load as he can manage. He’s currently living in an apartment Valjean set up for him in his house, and commuting to school and work by bus. He wants to move out to western Massachusetts to live with Cosette at the first available opportunity, but that’s the full extent of his plans for the future. He has no career plans or prospects, and is in general fairly lucky to have Jean Valjean looking out for him, surly, reluctant guardian angel that the man is.

Joly also has another year at Salem State ahead of him, though he’s not entirely sure he wants to go through with it. The closer he gets to finally becoming a nurse the more anxious he becomes over potential exposure to diseases. His devoted husband, noticing the increased frequency of night terrors over incurable ailments, is gently trying to steer him towards another career path.

Other than fear of early death due to illness, the first married couple of the group is doing fairly well. Money isn’t plentiful, and the couple doubts it ever will be, but the two are blessed in company and easy tempers. They see their other friends as often as busy schedules will permit, and are clearly as in love as ever. Legle didn’t manage to graduate on time with their other friends, but he was only a few credits shy and is hoping to have them finished up by the end of the summer.

Bahorel didn’t graduate on time either, which seems to have been entirely intentional on his part. He’s learned a little responsibility, and even a smidge of self-sufficiency since we saw him last, mostly due to a downward turn in his mother’s health. Even he felt bad about mooching off of his parents when they were struggling to that level, so Bahorel started working more hours and cutting back on some of his indulgences. He even let Musichetta teach him how to do his own laundry.

Musichetta has settled into Salem and is happily claiming the city as her home…for the time being, anyway. She’s still living with Joly and Legle, though she’s making some noises about wanting to move out and leave the happy couple to make their own home. With the money she’s raking in from her fortune telling and tour guiding she could easily afford her own place, even with the notoriously high cost of living in Massachusetts, so the more perceptive Amis have concluded that she’s waiting for Bahorel to bite on one of her increasingly less subtle hints.

Cosette is flourishing at Mount Holyoke, as everyone expected. She visits for a weekend here and there, and spends as much of the summer as possible with her father and boyfriend. She and Grantaire still text fairly frequently, though she’s mostly given up her role as counselor and taken on the role of friend instead.

Feuilly and Eponine are living in a basement apartment a town away from Salem. It’s not a huge distance from their old place, but it’s made commuting to their respective jobs even more difficult than it already had been. Eponine managed to win full custody of her brothers, and so is now concerned with keeping it. Little R’s been demonstrating some behavior problems in school, and she’s having a hard time making the kind of impression she’d like on his teachers. Thankfully, Gavroche is keeping his rebellion to a minimum these days, though he still makes his feelings known if Eponine and Feuilly make the mistake of giving the boy more guidance than he needs. Feuilly is unquestionably a part of the Thenardier family, with the siblings treating him as though he’d always been there. The boys had been hounding him to make it official and marry their big sister, and this was even before she’d gotten pregnant with their first niece. At this point in the story Eponine’s uncomfortably pregnant and very bitter about it. Feuilly’s been as tactful and careful as possible, fully recognizing that they were not in a good stage in their lives for a bouncing bundle of joy, but secretly he’s elated about fatherhood. He’s knitted six baby blankets in excited anticipation.

Azelma graduated high school with a fairly impressive GPA when one takes into consideration how poorly her first three years went. Her SAT scores were impressive by any measurement you’d want to use, and as such, she’s confident about her chances of getting into a good college. Eponine wants her to go to Salem State, or at the least stay close to home, but it looks like the girl has other plans.

And that, of course, leaves us with the stars of our original fan fic.

* * *

Enjolras was sprawled on his bed with a book of Rebecca Solnit essays, his cat asleep on his feet while the fan kept both of them cool. He’d had a stressful last semester of college, but had managed to pull off his summa cum laude along with Combeferre. As such, he’d decided that he deserved to take a few weeks to relax before plunging into grad school applications. He was still working at the café, of course, he and Grantaire were far too poor for him to do otherwise, but when he wasn’t working he was trying to take some time for himself.

His phone went off with a text, startling Raoul and sending him shooting around the room like a maniac until he settled under the bed. Enjolras groped along the folding table they had set up next to the bed in lieu of a nightstand and snatched his phone.

The text was from Grantaire, informing Enjolras that he’d had a miserable day at work, and that he was expecting sympathy and cuddles when he got home. There was a sharply worded follow up text threatening his well-being if he’d let the damn cat into their bedroom again.

Sighing, Enjolras closed his book, shooed his cat out from under the bed, and got him into the living room with Logan and Gladiator. Enjolras got the vacuum out of the hall closet and did his best to eliminate all traces of Raoul from the bedroom. Once he was finished he promptly hid the vacuum, then snatched Grantaire’s favorite ratty old sweatpants and his Frank Turner Recovery tour t-shirt from the closet. He’d just done laundry that morning, keeping in mind that Grantaire liked to shuck off his responsible, restrictive tour guide clothes as soon as was feasible after ending a shift at the house museum.

Enjolras laid the clothes on the bed, then went into the kitchen to check their supply of snacks. They were running a little low on food. Normally Combeferre did the brunt of the food shopping, but he was on a post-graduation celebratory vacation with his family. Enjolras needed to consult with Grantaire about their finances again. He was sure they weren’t doing so poorly that they were at ramen level, but he also didn’t like to hit up the grocery store without a Grantaire-sanctioned budget. Thanks to a lifetime of buying whatever he wanted whenever he happened to want it, Enjolras sucked at sticking to a shopping list unless he was incredibly mindful about it.

It looked like their choices for supper were frozen waffles or ramen. Wrinkling his nose in distaste, Enjolras decided against having dinner ready and waiting for Grantaire when he got home. He settled for ice water instead. The walk from downtown wasn’t lengthy, but in the humidity it wasn’t pleasant either, and Grantaire would have been on his feet all day showing tourists around the house and out through the gardens. He was going to be hot and irritable.

Grantaire burst through the door barely a minute after Enjolras set their glasses of water on the coffee table in the living room. His face was flushed and his dark hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. The thick strands were definitely less than pleasant in this heat. It was a testament to Grantaire’s love for his fiancé that he was still keeping his hair long despite what must have been an almost irresistible temptation to chop the mess off. As it stood, he’d scooped what he could off of his neck and into a messy ponytail that contrasted oddly with his otherwise formal work clothes.

Seeing as Grantaire hated wearing a collared shirt, tie, and slacks, Enjolras tried his best not to point out how much he enjoyed seeing his lover in them. Sadly, Grantaire had already taken off his tie, but he had the top buttons of his shirt undone, and he’d rolled up the sleeves to his elbows, showing off his muscled forearms and the tattoos he’d collected since that first memorial tattoo for Courfeyrac’s mother.

When their friends had gotten wind of Enjolras’ plans to help Grantaire cover his cutting scars with tattoos, everyone with the inclination and the funds had gotten Grantaire a buddy-tattoo for Christmas. Eponine went first, choosing a line from the song If Ever I Stray, with Grantaire getting the following line. Combeferre had him pick out some interesting anatomy drawings from an Andreas Vesalius book, which resulted in a somewhat larger tattoo than the kid had counted on, or wanted to explain to his parents. Still, they had rather lovely looking human dissections taking up a good chunk of their left forearms. Joly had gotten the comedy theater mask, leaving Grantaire the drama. Bossuet picked Charlie Brown; Grantaire got Linus. Musichetta got the star tarot card; Grantaire picked the moon. Bahorel, still under obligation to his mother, couldn’t get any more tattoos himself, but he funded a Dance of Death tattoo on Grantaire’s right bicep (he hadn’t actually had anything to cover at that point, but he thought it looked cool and Bahorel had wanted to participate in his body art in some fashion).

His favorite buddy tattoo was the one with Courfeyrac. They got chocobos over their left wrists. He would become even fonder of it a few years later, when he added a baby chocobo to accompany the proud papa.

Grantaire arched a skeptical brow when he noticed the way Enjolras was looking at him after his rather sudden entrance. “Really? I must look as pissed off as I feel, and I’m covered in sweat and tourist stink and wearing fucking dork clothes, and it’s hot as fuck in here, and you still want to jump me?”

Enjolras’ look of decided interest switched to one of coolness. “To be fair, love, I can’t smell the tourist stink from over here. Besides, you have no right to tease me for odd turn-ons. You know, considering that Emma Frost costume we put together that has never once seen the floor of a comic convention.”

“Yeah, Bahorel likes to pretend he doesn’t know exactly why I was asking him where to get those thigh high boots.” Grantaire popped a few more buttons from his shirt as he started for their bedroom. “There’s a world of difference between sexy dominatrix inspired lingerie and stuffy collared shirts that I have to tuck into these dorky fucking slacks. Seriously, getting ready for work feels like school picture day all over again.”

Enjolras walked up behind Grantaire, stopped him with a gentle touch, and placed a kiss on the side of his neck. He was left with a faintly salty taste on his lips when he pulled away. “You look good in collared shirts, ‘Taire. I especially like when you have the sleeves rolled up like that.” He circled Grantaire’s wrists with his own slender fingers and then slowly traced the pads of them up the inked forearms. He could feel the small, jagged lines on Grantaire’s skin, but the sight of them was almost completely overpowered by marks of friendship, creativity, and love.

“You’re awfully cuddly today.”

“You sound suspicious.”

Grantaire turned in Enjolras’ arms, rolled his eyes in fond exasperation, and then kissed the side of his mouth. “Fine, I’m being cranky and paranoid. It feels like if I’m in a shit mood then everyone else ought to be too.”

“So much of your nature was just explained with that one sentence.”

“That’s more like it.” Grantaire kissed him again, then continued on into the bedroom. Enjolras leaned against the doorway and watched him eagerly fling off his much-loathed formal shirt. Grantaire reached for the t-shirt on the bed, but stopped when he noticed that Enjolras was watching him. “What on earth are you staring at?”

“Um…you? I’d thought that was obvious. If you’d rather I not, I’ll wait in the living room, but that seems fairly pointless. It’s not like I’ve never seen you without your clothes on before.”

Grantaire cast a scathing look down at his torso, snorted, then looked back at Enjolras. He quickly pulled the t-shirt over his head, only breaking eye contact for a few seconds. “Babe, I still don’t quite get why you _want_ to look at me. Like, in the winter, okay, maybe. I’m not as ugly as I used to be, and when all of my skin is the same shade of pasty pale I kinda pull it off. But the pasty pale looks even worse when it’s paired up with lobster red from the sun burns, and I’m peeling, and sweaty and stinky and gross. And you look as inhumanly perfect as ever, so pardon my confusion.”

“If I’d been walking around in the sun for six or seven hours I’d be sweaty and gross.” He might even burn, though Enjolras tended to tan unless he was completely careless about sun exposure. Grantaire, even with carefully applied sunblock, burned to a crisp just taking a walk down the street.

“You would not be sweaty and gross. You’d be golden and glowing and your sweat somehow even smells good-”

“My sweat does _not_ smell good, ‘Taire.”

“I like the way it smells.”

“That’s you being an idiot. That doesn’t mean I don’t stink when I get sweaty.”

Grantaire laughed. “You can tell ‘Ferre’s not around. If he was home and he heard us arguing over whether or not we stink, he’d have to come in and tell us we were both being unforgivably stupid.” He was just pulling on the sweatpants when Enjolras spoke next, and so almost missed his words.

“I like the way you stink too, you know.”

“Huh?”

Enjolras sighed. “I’m not saying you should give up on deodorant or anything, but I like it when I can smell you.” Enjolras threw him one last little smile, then went into the living room to get their waters. When he returned, Grantaire was lying flat on the bed with his face buried in a pillow and their fan trained directly on him.

Enjolras set the glasses on their folding tray, then sat down beside Grantaire, took out his hair elastic, and gathered the sweat damp raven strands off his neck and held them up so that the fan could get at his skin. He made a tired but appreciative noise and stirred a bit, shifting closer to his fiancé.

Enjolras stretched out beside him and lazily draped an arm over Grantaire’s back. “I expected you to start bitching by now. Was work really that bad?”

“Oh god, Enjolras. If it’d been you, you’d have killed someone.”

Enjolras leaned up on his elbow. “Alright, get your head out of the pillow. I want to hear this one clearly. What happened?”

“You know how I’ve been going off script when I do the bit on the triangle trade?”

Enjolras nodded. He and Combeferre had spent a few nights helping Grantaire rewrite that part of his tour script. The family that had owned the house Grantaire worked at had gotten a good chunk of their fortune by selling refuse cod to sugar plantations in the West Indies, like many an early Massachusetts millionaire. In an effort to make the family seem a smidge less exploitative and evil, the script’s interpretation of the triangle trade was very light on slavery and didn’t mention Africa at all. In fact, every map of the significant maritime trade routes traversed by Massachusetts ships in the entire museum excluded Africa entirely. Grantaire might not have been the social activist his friends were, but that retelling of history rankled him and he’d gone to Enjolras and Combeferre for help in coming up with a way to expand on what the museum wanted him to say so that he told the truth, but in a way that wouldn’t get him fired.

It had been a balancing act, but what they’d finally come up with was the following: the triangle trade is a conveniently simple name for what was, in reality, a very complex series of trade routes. This version in particular dealt mostly with England and the West Indies, but other versions also hit on parts of Africa. This family sold goods like lumber and refuse cod to sugar plantations. It wasn’t as much information as Enjolras would have liked to give, but it was safe, it didn’t feel as evil as pretending slavery didn’t exist, and Grantaire could always expand into a proper lecture if anyone happened to ask any questions.

The frustrating thing, though, was that people rarely did. More people cared about asinine details like the kind of wood the floor was made of than the role of the people who’d lived in the house and the kind of influence their fabulous wealth allowed them in local history. The script left all kinds of openings for real and genuine questions, but more often than not Grantaire had to rattle off years various pieces of furniture were made, how many bedrooms were in the house, no really, it may look small to you but it definitely counted as a mansion in the mid seventeenth century, and for the last damn time, I totally see you sneaking pictures with your cell phone and if I see it leave your pocket again I’m kicking you out of the tour. To his eternal frustration, no one ever asked a question worth answering.

“I didn’t think the way we’d worded the triangle trade bit for you was a problem,” Enjolras prodded. He went back to carding his fingers through Grantaire’s hair; Grantaire liked it, and the poor man was so obviously stressed out and in need of soothing gestures.

Grantaire made a pleased little noise and leaned into Enjolras’ touch before continuing his story. “Well, the administrators caught wind of it. Someone left us a fucking outstanding review on Trip Advisor. They talked about how brilliant their tour guide was, how he seemed to know a bit of everything and was sarcastic and funny and kept everyone entertained. And they said that the best part was that this guide told the truth about the house and the family. That instead of treating the house like a shrine, you got real history. And they mentioned the stuff about the cod and the sugar plantations, and about how that means you know the family got their money selling substandard food to slaves that were being worked to death.”

“Ooo.”

“Yeah. They figured out it was me. Even though the review was full of praise, I’m in deep shit because I made everyone else look dishonest and smarmy.”

“Which they are,” Enjolras said. “Not to mention, you pointed out how racist their whole interpretation is.”

Grantaire shifted a bit so that he was lying in Enjolras’ arms. “Enjolras, you know I’m not actually like you. I don’t want to change the world and make it better. I just want to shuffle my way through it and not get the crap kicked out of me too badly while I’m here. The only reason I asked you and Combeferre to look over the script and help me with it was because as it stood it felt evil. But I’m not, like, aiming to change the entire museum’s interpretation. I think it’d kick ass if they talked more about people than the thread count of the damn curtains, but I wasn’t planning on making waves. And now I’ve been written up and I’ve got a meeting with the curatorial department in the morning.”

“I bet your tourists would like it better if you talked about people instead of thread counts too. You should mention that in the meeting.”

“I don’t want to go to the damn meeting. I just want to quit.”

Enjolras sighed. “Of course you do. Grantaire…you’ve been working here for almost a year. In that time, you’ve pretty much mastered the subject matter of that house. You’ve become conversational about three different centuries of local history, and all the art and architectural knowledge you learned about that house is no small achievement. You’re a valuable staff member for them and they know that. Hold your ground. If you stand up for yourself, this could actually go well for you.”

“I don’t wanna stand up for myself.”

“Love, you’re being whiny.”

“Love, you’re projecting your activist bullshit onto me,” Grantaire returned. He leaned up and stuck his tongue out at Enjolras for emphasis. “Look, I’m pretty good at the tour guiding thing, but I’ve also pretty much hated it since I started. I hate the clothes, I hate herding tourists through the house like cattle, and I fucking detest that allergen laden pit they call a garden. I want out. I think I should call them all racist fuck sticks, flip ‘em the bird, and start job hunting.”

“You didn’t happen to talk your plans over with Eponine before I saw you, did you?”

“Fuck sticks was her, but the bird flipping was all me.”

“Ah.” Enjolras slipped his hands under Grantaire’s t-shirt and felt his way along the soft, clammy skin. The fan had cooled Grantaire considerably, although his temper was still simmering. He was beginning to relax though, if the rhythm of the breaths regularly hitting Enjolras’ throat were any indication. “If you really want another job, I’m sure we can find you another job.”

“Feuilly says they need another guy for activities at the nursing home.”

“’Taire, if you can’t handle tourists then I don’t think you should be calling Bingo for dementia patients.”

“Yeah, probably not. It’d be nice if this comic book thing could just take off, wouldn’t it? I mean seriously Enj, how frickin’ cool would it be if I could just draw comics all day? Stay at home, not talk to anyone I didn’t actually want to see…work in my pajamas…it’d be great.”

“Mm. You know, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. In a few years, you’ll probably be there.”

Grantaire let out a startlingly loud bark of laughter. “Oh Enj, ever the fucking optimist. I know my web comics have a pretty decent following, but _come on_. I am never going to be able to quit my fucking day job for my art. You’re cute though.”

Enjolras grinned and let it go. It was an old, friendly argument between them. Enjolras had faith in Grantaire’s artwork and was sure that that was the best place for Grantaire to invest his energy, but Grantaire treated his passion like a hobby and regarded it with his habitual self-defeating cynicism.

He was saved the necessity of further comment by his stomach giving a loud rumble. Grantaire, still lying draped over Enjolras, couldn’t escape hearing it. “What have you eaten today, Enj?”

“Um…” Enjolras stopped to think. “I had some coffee when I was checking Facebook this morning-”

“Coffee’s not a meal.”

“I know it’s not, now let me finish. Let’s see…coffee, and then I finished the oatmeal and fruit you’d had for breakfast.”

“That was like three bites, max.”

“I think I might have had some toast while I was reading the James Baldwin book Combeferre loaned me.”

“You _might_ have? Also, I really love that you have to remember what you were reading at the time to figure out if you’ve eaten. And by love, I mean you’d fucking starve to death without me. Idiot.” Grantaire sat up and pulled Enjolras into a sitting position. “C’mon, let’s go visit Eponine at your work and scam some free sandwiches.”

Enjolras once more allowed himself to be tugged away from the bed and cuddles. Really, he could have sat there all night, content with the fan and the ice water to mitigate the summer heat, and his lover nestled in his arms. But Grantaire was probably right about the need to get real food. He might even have been right about quitting the museum (or getting himself fired, which was what the plan sounded like to Enjolras), and though Enjolras hated to admit it, he could even be right about his art going nowhere. But he was most definitely right when it came to food, and Enjolras even felt safe admitting that.

“Alright, ‘Taire. Let’s get some sandwiches.”

%MCEPASTEBIN%


End file.
